2023 Liturgy Conference Schedule

A pre-conference opportunity

The North American Syriac Symposium will offer a panel on liturgy on Monday, June 12 from 9:00 – 10:40am at Yale Divinity School. Click here for more information. All ISM conference attendees are welcome without a separate registration.

Monday, June 12 (Day 1)

Greenberg Conference Center, Yale University, 391 Prospect St., New Haven see map

1:30 - 2:30pm          |  Registration (Greenberg Lobby)

2:30 - 3:00pm         | Welcome and introductory remarks (Greenberg Dining Room)

3:00 - 4:00pm        | Opening keynote: Laura Nasrallah, “Christ the New Song: Music and Incantation, Cure and Gospel” (Greenberg Dining Room)

4:00 – 4:30pm       |  Coffee break (Greenberg Lobby)

4:30 – 5:30pm        |  Plenary speaker: Andrew McGowan, “True Bread: Ancient Rabbis, Medieval Patriarchs, and the Modern Magisterium on Leavening, Fermentation, and Gluten” (Greenberg Dining Room)

6:00pm                      |  Dinner for plenary speakers

For registrants, dinner on your own.

Tuesday, June 13 (Day 2)

8:30 – 9:00am        |   Breakfast (Greenberg Lobby)

9:00 – 10:15am      |   Plenary speaker: Nathan Chase, “Oleoculture: The Production, Ritual Use, and Reservation of ’the Fruit of the Olive’ in the Early Church” (Greenberg Amphitheater)

10:15 – 10:45am     |   Coffee break (Greenberg Lobby)

10:45 – 12:00pm    |   Plenary speaker: Esther Chung-Kim,  “Cost of Practicing Religion” (Greenberg Amphitheater)

12:00 – 2:00pm      |   Lunch break (Greenberg outdoor tent)

2:00 – 3:00pm        |  Concurrent session: (30-minute talk with 15 minutes for Q&A)

  • Nougoutna Litoing, “The Cost of Celebrating Authentically: Revisiting the debate on the Inculturation of the Eucharist in Africa and Its Economic Import” (Greenberg Dining Room) (Zoom)
  • Brigitte Van Wymeersch, “The price of praise and faith. Study of the musical environment of a semi-rural parish in Hainaut in the 18th century” (Greenberg, Amphitheatre)
  • Tyler Sampson, “Beyond the Deluxe: Early Medieval Liturgical Production in “Modest” Manuscripts” (ISM Great Hall, Sterling Divinity Quadrangle)
  • Kimberly Hope Belcher, “Enslavement Museums: Pilgrimage, Dark Tourism, and Social Reconciliation” (ISM Miller Hall, Common Room)
  • Jonghyun Kim, “Money Offering and Its Spirituality” (ISM Miller Hall, 203)

3:00 – 3:30pm        |    Break (Greenberg Lobby)

3:30 – 4:30pm        |    Plenary speaker: Ephrem Ishac, “Expensive Blessings in the Syriac Liturgical Tradition” (Greenberg Amphitheater)

4:40 – 5:30pm        |    Reception (Greenberg Patio)

                                              Dinner on your own

Wednesday, June 14 (Day 3)

8:30 – 9:00am        |   Breakfast (Greenberg Lobby)

9:30 – 10:30am       |   Speaker: Nicholas Beasley,  “Anglican Liturgy in British Slave Societies, 1650-1780” (Greenberg Amphitheater)

10:30 – 11:00am     |   Break (Greenberg Lobby)

11:00 – 12:00pm     |   Concurrent session II: (30-minute talk with 15 minutes for Q&A)

  • Janie Cole, “Sacred Music, Jesuit Liturgy, and the Economics of Patronage in the Christian Kingdom of 17th-Century Ethiopia” (Greenberg Dining Room) (Zoom)
  • Andrew Irving, “On Trash, And Other Liturgical Things” (Greenberg, Amphitheatre)
  • Bryan Cones, “What’s the Emoji for ‘Communion’? The Digital Collapse of the Eucharistic Symbol” (ISM Great Hall, Sterling Divinity Quadrangle)
  • Dina Boero, “Beyond the Hierarchy of the Altar: The Ritual-Architectural Event at Qal‘at Sim‘ān” (ISM Miller Hall, Common Room)
  • Porter Taylor, “Homo Adorans and Christ’s Leitourgia: A Liturgical Anthropology” (ISM, Miller Hall, 203)

12:00 – 2:00pm       |   Lunch (Greenberg outdoor tent)

2:00 – 3:00pm         |  Concurrent session III: (30-minute talk with 15 minutes for Q&A)

  • Jenny Smith, “Ora et Labora: Artisans, Reformers, and the Religious Economy of Time in Early Modern Geneva” (Greenberg Dining Room)
  • Adam Vander Tuig, “Hydrocapitalist Transubstantiations: Water, Wealth, and the Rite of Christian Baptism” (Greenberg, Amphitheatre)
  • Joshua Busman, “Celestial Jukebox: Algorithms, Interpassivity, and Worship in the Age of Playlists” (ISM Miller Hall, Common Room)
  • Innocent Smith, “‘To what purpose is this waste?’ (Mt 26:8): Luxury Illumination and Utilitarian Decoration in Medieval Mass Books” (ISM Miller Hall, 203)

3:30 – 5:00pm          |  Guided tours (Bus pickup outside Greenberg)

  1. “Dura Europos,” at the Yale University Art Gallery with expert talk on the Dura baptistery, by Professor Felicity Harley McGowan
  2. “Medieval liturgical manuscripts” at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; details TBD

6:00 pm                        |  Conference dinner, Omni Hotel, 155 Temple, New Haven

Thursday, June 15 (Day 4)

8:30 – 9:00am           |   Breakfast  (YDS Upper Common Room)

9:00 – 10:00am        |   Plenary speaker: Braxton Shelley, “Sharing Space, Making Place: Gospel Materiality and Black Life Online” (ISM Great Hall)

10:00 – 10:30am       |   Break (YDS Upper Common Room)

10:30 – 11:30am         |  Plenary speaker: Antonio Alonso, “Mass Appeal: Music, Materiality, and the Market in the Postconciliar U.S. Catholic Church” (ISM Great Hall)

11:30am – 12:00pm  |  Concluding remarks/wrap-up (ISM Great Hall)

12:00pm                        | Boxed lunches to-go (YDS Upper Common Room)